Explorations of Conscious Reality Creation and Other Matters

Tag: daily life
(Page 1 of 14)

This is probably the most basic, yet most challenging question to ask. The answer is both amazingly simple, and yet fairly complicated.

Pathwalking is making choices about living life, in order to work to consciously create our personal reality as we want it to be. Rather than simply going along with life and letting whatever happens, happen; as we walk our chosen paths we strive to be present and aware. We don’t want to let life just occur, we are working on living life to its fullest.

There is always more than one path. That’s how the universe works. If consciousness creates reality, as this blog asserts, then we can choose virtually any path we might desire. As such, there is more than one “right” path for us.

It’s important to recognize that the idea of “right” is fairly loaded. Right is often the extreme opposite of wrong, but in this context right is a matter of feeling, desire, and drive. Further, today’s right choice could be wrong for us tomorrow.

I recognize that that’s pretty vague. This is because the specifics of what is right for me are not going to necessarily be right for you, or for anyone else for that matter. “Right” in this particular context is a matter of feeling, belief and faith.

How do I recognize the right path?

The short answer is that the right path will feel good. It will almost seem like its too easy, and the work you do along the right path feels less like work, and more like play. It’s surprisingly easy to lose track of time when you are on the right path, because you get so caught up in it you just take action because it’s what you need to do.

For example, when I am writing, and really getting into my work, whether it’s my blog or my fiction or even writing for business, I often just flow with it. Time loses meaning, and I come away from a project feeling complete, content, and like I wasn’t working at all, just doing what feels good to me.

I desire to be writing more frequently. I am driven to write, and that is how I am certain that this is the path that is right for me.

It feels good. It feels like it is what I am supposed to do. That is how I know my path is the right path. But to really be travelling upon that path, it’s important to believe and have faith.

What’s the difference between belief and faith?

In many respects these are similar concepts, but not in this context. How does this work, then? Belief is important to Pathwalking, because if you don’t believe that consciousness can create reality, and that you can choose your own destiny, your own path in life, then you are going to be incapable of living this way.

I believe that I can create the life I desire. I have made this work before, more than once. And that is where faith comes into play.

I believe in this…but I don’t necessarily have faith. I believe, in the abstract, but my faith in my own belief is open to scrutiny, questioned by my own skepticism. But more than that, what this boils down to is my faith in myself. I believe that consciousness creates reality, but I have no faith in myself to consciously create it.

If I am responsible for consciously creating my reality, then I need to have faith in myself. I am the only one who can make MY life what I want it to be. But if I lack faith in myself, what can I do?

How do you create faith in yourself?

When you believe in yourself, you believe you are capable of almost anything. We nearly all feel this way as children, but as we get older and we are exposed to certain “realities”, this fades. We can regain our ability to believe in abstracts, but after that we have to have faith – faith in ourselves.

Skepticism, cynicism, self-doubt, self-recrimination, second-guessing and self-deprecation are all born of a lack of faith. Despite what you might believe about conscious reality creation, you don’t have sufficient faith in yourself to achieve it. This is evident if your self-talk is frequently negative, such as I am no good; I am unimportant; I am fat; I am lazy; I fail more often than I succeed; if I don’t joke about myself everyone else will; and so on. When you speak ill of yourself, it shows a lack of faith in who you are capable of being.

You may not be who you want to be right now. That’s ok. One of the reasons to choose Pathwalking is to become the person you most want to be, even if that is not who you are now. To do that you have to think about it, feel it out, take inspired, intentional actions – and believe in the possibility; have faith in your ability to succeed. When it feels like you can conquer the world, and you believe in conscious reality creation and have faith in yourself, you will know that are on the right path for you.

Do you have faith in yourself and your ability to choose your own destiny?

This is the two-hundred eighty-fourth entry in my series. These weekly posts are ideas for and my personal experiences with walking along the path of life. I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world along the way.

Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-blog and share.

The first year of Pathwalking, including some expanded ideas, is available here.

Share this:

I long ago came to believe that nothing worth having is ever easy. But there is a difference between challenge and struggle. Challenge involves growth and proactive change, while struggle is stagnation and reactive change. Challenge is deciding to change, while struggle is forced.

Many of the challenges in Pathwalking are due to outside influences, some which we can control and some which we cannot. Recognizing this is the first step towards working with it, and keeping challenges from becoming struggles.

Further, when you recognize that you are struggling, it is possible to transmute your struggle into a challenge. This is where taking control of the matters which you can control comes into play.

What is outside of your control? Other people, situations that are not of your making, world news and such. Let’s face it…we live in tumultuous times. There is a tremendous amount of upheaval and reactionary measures happening because people are either making poor choices or no choices due to fear of change. We can protest, we can vote more wisely, we can choose where and how to spend our money, but we cannot change these people, their actions or how they think, no matter how badly we want to do that.

What is inside of your control? Everything that is yours in your life. Your thoughts, feelings and actions, your situations, your mental state, how you use your time and so on. You are the only person who can think for you, feel for you, act for you. Nobody else can make you think, feel or do anything you do not allow yourself to think, feel and do.

We frequently give this away without realizing that we are doing that. They influenced my thinking and she made me feel that way and I only did that thing because you made me do it. Easy enough to give that power away, but that is a choice, a decision. The power is yours, but you get to choose if you will take hold of it, or not.

Looking out for yourself is not selfish.

We live in a society obsessed with polar opposites. Black and white, rich and poor, conservative and liberal, gay and straight, fat and thin, etc. We are inundated with choices of either/or, when the truth is most people in every way fall somewhere between extremes.

One of these is the notion that if you are not selfless, you are selfish. As such, we often find ourselves believing that self-care is selfish, so we neglect it to care for others. Then we wonder why we are struggling, when we have accepted this notion and let ourselves take a second-rate place in our own lives.

When we do not hold onto things for ourselves, and we do not care for ourselves, we actually take away our ability to give to others. We have to be full in order to have enough to share, and because this is an abundant universe that is not a selfish notion. We are all unique individuals, and we all have different needs and wants, but no matter what those may be, we all need to care for ourselves. Putting yourself first is perfectly fine, so long as you don’t ignore that there is a world apart from yourself. You are the center of your own world, but you are also a part of rather than apart from the rest of the world. That’s an important distinction to remain clear on.

Choose challenge. Choose change.

Change is inevitable. It will happen, because that is part of life and growth. Even when you are standing perfectly still, the air around you is changed by your body heat and your breath. That is the nature of all things. So rather than struggle from resisting change, accept the challenges that may come from change.

The challenges of Pathwalking will be different for everyone. Things I find simple and easy you may find unbelievably difficult, and vice versa. I am a thinker, and while I am empathic, I have often struggled to understand people who are true feelers. However, while I can be logical about my feelings, actually understanding the meanings of my feelings can be difficult for me. Then there are people who are doers – they take actions with seemingly little thought or feeling going into them, sometimes with extreme wisdom and sometimes less so.

Many of the challenges thinkers, feelers or doers will experience may be similar, but they may also vary rather widely. The thing is to make the choices and decide to work on challenges we face, rather than to let choices and decisions out of our control, and work on struggles that drain us and disempower us.

Pathwalking is empowering.

Despite challenges and occasional struggles, Pathwalking, ultimately, is empowering. Choosing your own path means that you are working on deciding how you want life to be. When we decide this for ourselves, we open ourselves to discovering our happiness, and that, I believe, is the thing we most want to know.

When you are struggling, it is always possible to face it head-on and turn it into a challenge. It may not be easy, but I believe empowering the self is always worthwhile. Choosing my own destiny and deciding how I want to be I believe is key to living the best life I possibly can.

What challenges do you work with regularly, and how do you approach them?

This is the two-hundred eighty-third entry in my series. These weekly posts are ideas for and my personal experiences with walking along the path of life. I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world along the way.

Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-blog and share.

The first year of Pathwalking, including some expanded ideas, is available here.

Share this:

This can be a particularly difficult concept to believe, but that doesn’t lessen the truth of it. You are in control over how you think, how you feel, and how you act.

I know that sometimes it feels like that control is really, really limited. Truth is, however, that the only limitations are those that you yourself place. Otherwise, you have far more power and capability to change your life as you would most desire than you probably believe.

I created Pathwalking with the intent of taking control over my life, and creating the destiny I believe I am meant for. I have long known that the standard courses in life were not for me, and overall I have not taken those particular paths.

One career since college? Nope, not at all. I have held numerous jobs, but not followed a single career path until fairly recently. Marriage in my late twenties or early thirties and raise kids? Nope, didn’t get married until my early forties, and we’re not going to produce children. Buy a house, use it to build equity and maintain stability? While I have been a homeowner, the current plan is to not buy again anytime soon, and rent for the purpose of mobility.

Why am I pointing these out? Because it is way too easy to let society dictate control over our lives. We live in a society that discourages us from striking out on our own path, rather than choosing something not-the-normal. Rather than empower the individual, our society prefers to keep us underfoot, at the whim of our bosses, our religious and political leaders, our supposed superiors.

You are In Charge of You

Nobody is superior to anybody else. It does not matter if they have more education, more money, more experience or are older than you or more specialized, the only person you answer to, when all is said and done, is you. The only power anyone else enjoys over you is in place because you have given it away.

That is a particularly hard pill to swallow. We are so indoctrinated into this idea that other people can control us, that other people can be responsible for our emotions and actions, that we cannot believe this is only true because we allow it to be. Other people are only able to affect us as much or as little as we allow them to.

For example, let’s say you were in a relationship, but then your partner unceremoniously dumped you. Yes, you feel hurt, probably betrayed, and upset…but chances are you blame them for hurting you. They caused you to be hurt, they treated you poorly, and in all likelihood your feelings and opinion of your former partner will only spiral downwards from there.

Yes, it was the action on the part of your former partner that caused those bad feelings. Yes, it is perfectly normal and totally human to feel hurt, betrayed and upset. But, you are the one feeling these feelings. As such, you get to choose how long you will hold onto them, and how far along the downward spiral you care to travel.

You are the only one who can feel how you feel. While there are uncountable outside influences that can and will effect how you feel, you are the only one who actually feels what you feel. As such, the person who has caused you to hurt only hurts you for as long as you allow them to have that power over you.

Taking another step from here, you and only you are responsible for your actions. Nobody can make you do anything you do not choose to do. Yet because our society is so keyed into not being accountable for anything, it is easy to place the blame for bad actions we have taken -outside of ourselves.

Take Back Your Power

When you understand that you are the one in control of your own thoughts, feelings and actions, you get to choose how much of that control to exert. You will feel upset for as long as you hold onto it, and you will not take an action that is not of your own accord, unless you choose to and blame it on another. You are the one who gets to decide. You get to choose.

You will notice over the coming weeks changes to this blog. I am studying new ideas to improve what I share here, and that means things will be changing. Since change is inevitable, happens whether we want it or not, I am exerted control over change, and choosing to alter this how I desire the change to be.

Last week I explained how intention is the reality of control. Intention is composed of thought and feeling and action, and you are the only person who can control all of your thoughts, your feelings and your actions. Nobody else can choose for you, nobody else can be in control, unless you allow them to be. You can keep the power over your thoughts, feelings and actions, or you can give it away in part or total. That is your decision.

Consciousness creates reality. Recognizing our own control over the vast majority of our lives, we can be empowered to make almost anything we can imagine of them. We are free thinkers; we are the only ones who feel the things we feel, however we feel them; we are the only ones who can act on our own thoughts and feelings.

You are in control of more than you believe yourself to be. When you recognize this, embrace it and see just how endless the possibilities are before you.

What feels out of your control that you can take back for yourself?

This is the two-hundred eighty-second entry in my series. These weekly posts are ideas for and my personal experiences with walking along the path of life. I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world along the way.

Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-blog and share.

The first year of Pathwalking, including some expanded ideas, is available here.

Share this:

When you take an intentional action, you have a purpose, and are not just doing some thing for the sake of doing the thing. Intent means there is a plan to gain something from the action taken.

I have been writing more or less since I began Pathwalking that one of the main reasons to walk one’s own path is to take control of your own destiny. I want to create a unique, interesting life that I wake up excited to partake of day in, day out. I don’t want to just let life happen or let circumstances dictate who I can be. That is why I am choosing my paths for myself.

A lot of people get hung up on the idea of control. They want to control how things happen in their lives, and often become unhappy when that does not work out as intended. The thing is, control means nothing if there is no intent behind it.

What does that mean? What that means is that taking an action for the sake of acting is ineffectual. It’s the equivalent of igniting the rocket engine but not bothering to steer, and hoping you’ll fly straight and true. Sure, you’re moving…but are you moving where you want to?

Intentional action is igniting the rocket engine and then steering the rocket where you want it to go. You are not just acting, you are acting with purpose, with a plan, with a goal in mind.

I want to be in control of my destiny. That’s a pretty lofty idea. Along the way there are going to be twists and turns and obstacles and other factors that will change my course, alter my plans, and maybe even shift the destiny I believe I want. So it is important to work to control only the seemingly little bits that are, and always will be, mine to control.

This begins with thoughts. You, and you alone, are responsible for your own thoughts. Yes, you can read things that will give you ideas, and you can certainly talk to people who might influence your thoughts. But when all is said and done, you are in control. You are the only one who can think the thoughts in the way that you think them.

The same is true of feelings. You, and you alone, are responsible for your emotions. Yes, you can have encounters that will make you feel certain ways, and you will talk to and associate with people who will make you feel good and bad, superior and inferior. But when all is said and done, you are in control. You are the only one who can feel the feelings in the way that you feel them.

Frequently, we do not acknowledge this. We blame society, leaders, teachers, parents, lovers, friends and enemies for making us think and feel certain things. We give away our power, and we let unintentional thoughts and feelings dominate us. This can lead to unintentional consequences, and before we know it we are reacting to problems and putting out fires and fighting to regain lost control more often than actually taking it.

This is where intention comes in. Intention is about first directing your thoughts. Intention might as well be the initial idea. For example, mine: “I want to be a best-selling author”.

That is the idea. So the thought that stems from there leads to other thoughts, which in turn lead to feelings and then to actions. From the thought of “I want to be a best-selling author” to the feeling of “I will feel fulfilled and happy when I succeed,” then intentionally feeling how that feels; inspired, intentional actions are engaged and movement happens.

These are actions that have the idea behind them, the intent…and intentional action is, just to reiterate the point, not just accelerating down the highway in a rocket-powered car, but steering that car along the road. That is what intention is, and intention is the key to taking control.

Intention is the reality of control. This comes from having thought and feeling and direction leading into action. Acting without intent might get you where you want to go, but still leaves an awful lot up to chance. If you are seeking your own path, then you want to take every opportunity to traverse it as best suits you. Being intentional takes in the control that we desire to have.

One important note of caution. Intent is not the same as knowing how. I have written before about sometimes getting so caught up in the how of a process that I fail to manifest anything. I have the thought, feel the feeling, take an intentional action, but then wonder how all this will actually get me to my goal. I will constantly question how the frequency changes and shifts matters to me. Intent is not knowing the how of the action, per se; it is putting energy into the action to generate the vibrational frequency necessary to attract the goal and manifest the desired outcome.

Conscious creates reality. We have the power to manifest almost anything we want for our lives. Once we see how true this really is, we gain an amazing amount of power over our world. Intentional actions following our thoughts and feelings will let us achieve almost anything we can think of. Intention truly is the reality of control.

Are your actions intentional? What intentional actions would you like to be taking?

This is the two-hundred eighty-first entry in my series. These weekly posts are ideas for and my personal experiences with walking along the path of life. I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world along the way.

Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-blog and share.

The first year of Pathwalking, including some expanded ideas, is available here.

Share this:

Balancing living in the now with our overall perception of time is an interesting challenge.

As I concluded last week, I have been thoroughly indoctrinated into the societal obsession with time, and my work to withdraw from that perception is a challenge. But because I desire to consciously create the reality I most want to have, I am doing anything and everything I can think of to more regularly live in the here and now.

What tools do I have to employ for this process? That is the question. Like many such things in life, this is a matter of trial and error. No one of these works entirely by itself, it is combinations of these I strive to employ as warranted. Different actions at different times will produce different effects.

What does that mean? What that means is that while the goal is rather objective, the process is almost entirely subjective. Situation, mood, weather, location, and all kinds of other factors are going to be a part of when and where tools can be applied. Some are passive, some are active.

Let’s start with the most active tools.

Meditation. When I meditate, I bring myself totally into the moment. Not only am I in the here-and-now while meditating, I also get to connect directly to source energy. The Powers-that-Be are most readily accessible, because I shut out the world around me and work to be present and still.

This does not require a lot of time, but of late I have been striving for 10 minutes or more per day. Yet even taking 5 minutes a day can do a body good.

There are several ways to practice meditation. My preferred method is to sit cross-legged, back against a wall, eyes closed and focused on my breathing. I like to have some form of white-noise in the background, usually a flowing stream or ocean waves. I put my attention on my breathing, slowing it as best I can…and when random thoughts flit about like squirrels in my brain I work on not grabbing ahold of them, but refocusing on my breathing.

Other ideas for meditation include visualizing connecting to some sort of internal or external energy source. Or if you prefer not to close your eyes, focus on a single point, allowing yourself to drift. Meditation is the ultimate tool to put yourself in the here-and-now.

Exercise. Whether I lift weights, use an elliptical, walk around a lake, or attend fencing practice, exercising is a great means to put myself into the here-and-now. I am doing something that is good for the body, which in turn is good for the soul. Exercise changes breathing, changes heart rate, and frequently puts me in the moment.

Even fifteen minutes of exercise is good for you, while twenty to thirty is scientifically proven to be really beneficial.

Both meditation and exercise also can put you into the zone, or the void, or what Musashi called the “Place of No Mind”. That is the space where you are entirely in the moment, enfolded within perfect harmony, where time loses meaning and you can almost see and feel everything in slow-motion. This is the ultimate expression of being wholly in the here-and-now.

More passive tools include:

Questions. I work to ask myself, several times a day, How Am I? What am I thinking? What am I feeling? Am I thinking about things ahead of me, or in the now? Am I feeling abundant? Just asking these questions causes me to be aware, and awareness draws me into the present. I write out my answers between three and five times a day.

Mantras and Affirmations. Having a simple mantra, no more than a word or two, and repeating it several times a day opens awareness, and places you in the present. Similarly, a longer affirmation can have the same effect. The difference between these, as I understand it, is that a mantra is more general and over-arching, like Abundance or Om or Peace or Love and so forth. Affirmations are more direct and specific statements, like I am a money magnet or I am a successful writer who inspires and empowers people. Saying these, reading these places you in the present, which then allows you the best opportunities to successfully manifest whatever you are seeking.

Take time for yourself. Get offline. Step away from your desk. Leave your mobile devices behind. Go somewhere you can be entirely by yourself, preferably somewhere you can breathe deep and collect your thoughts. Modern society keeps us constantly connected to one another, but this actually serves to distract and isolate us more than truly connect us. Getting lost online or playing a game or conversing via text with a friend can be a nice distraction, but actually serves to mask our awareness. It is not, in my opinion, dissimilar to using alcohol or opiates to mask pain.

I am not saying it’s not good to have occasional distractions. It is important, however, to be aware of what they are, and the difference between awareness of the here-and-now and distraction.

Time is not our enemy. Time is not a ravenous wolf that will one day catch us and destroy us. Time is not against us. Time is not beating us down…unless we choose to let it. Time is only linear if we perceive it as such. Living more in the here-and-now can help us escape the societal obsession with linear time, and when we better see that time is an illusion, we gain an incredible tool to allow us to consciously create reality.

We have plenty of tools to choose from, and we get to choose when and how to employ them. How do you most frequently perceive time?

This is the two-hundred eightieth entry in my series. These weekly posts are ideas and my personal experiences in walking along the path of life. I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world along the way.

Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-blog and share.

The first year of Pathwalking, including some expanded ideas, is available here.

Share this:

Finding the balance between living in the now and setting goals for the future is uniquely challenging.

Pathwalking is about taking control of your destiny, and making choices along the path of life to manifest what you want from it. This is not just living life come-what-may, like so many people do, but instead making decisions, making choices about raising your vibrational energy, and manifesting a life you want to live.

Why bother? Because I don’t know about you, but I want to wake up in the morning excited to face my day. I want to enjoy every moment of my day, not spend long periods of it wishing I were elsewhere, or doing something else, or being someone I am currently not, but could still become. We are here in this reality to learn, to grow, to be the most we can be.

While one can certainly take an aimless journey along a given path, having a goal gives us a reason, gives us a purpose, gives us something to strive for. Maybe it will make us better, maybe it will make us more abundant, but ultimately it’s probably something that will make us happy.

Yet, in order to get from here to there, it’s insanely important to live in the now. While this may seem like a contradiction, it’s actually the key to success.

Let’s go with my goal. I intend to be a best-selling author. Great, I have the goal at the end of my path. Now, here and now, what thoughts, feelings and actions can I take to get to that goal? It is important I do not neglect the present, because this is where I am; yet it’s equally important that I do not get lost in the past, hashing over matters that I wanted to change or do differently.

Time is relative. Einstein taught us that time is illusionary, and that our perception of it is unique to ourselves. I got into this further in a recent Crossing the Bridges. However, current reality is the product of past thought, feeling and action. That’s simply the way it works, we are who we are based on how we thought, what we felt and how we acted before now.

To get to where we desire to be in the future, it’s important to be aware of how we are thinking, feeling and acting in the now. This will allow us to direct our energy, to raise vibrational frequency, and to consciously create our desires. The past is past, simple as that, and only by working with awareness here and now can we affect the outcome for the future we wish to manifest.

BUT, of course, the danger is focusing on that future and neglecting the present. If you lose touch of where you are RIGHT NOW, because you are focusing on the outcome, life continues to live you, and you give control away. Your subconscious can create your reality, but chances are you will not get what you most want. This is why awareness, consciousness of here and now, is the key to manifesting the desired outcome.

Yes, we need to learn lessons from the past, because those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it. Yes, we need to visualize the future as if it’s already here, but that is not about daydreaming as much as bringing the idea into your awareness, HERE AND NOW, to make it part of your consciousness. Once we think and feel the desired outcome as though it is already a part of our here and now, a part of our current awareness, then we give it the vibration and energy to consciously create reality as we most desire it.

That’s crazy, right? Except by living in the now, while envisioning the desired outcome in the future ALSO in the now, we empower our potential, and increase the energy needed to consciously create just that. That is, of course, what Einstein was talking about. When we understand, really understand, that time is wholly based on our individual perception of it, we get to choose to take control of it, or be a victim of it.

We frequently blame time for lack, for limitation, for failure. But time is an illusion. Any lack and limitations we put on time are entirely of our own doing. Which means we have the power to choose for ourselves how best to use time.

One major issue in all of this is society. Our society is absolutely obsessed with linear time. Our entire culture frequently gets hyper-focused on matters of linear time, so much so that we have created precision atomic clocks in order to measure its’ passing. We are always looking at time in straight lines, viewing yesterday, examining tomorrow, calling ourselves too old or too young, saying we are running out of time, time marches on, and so on and so forth. Is it any wonder we are so easily distracted from living in the now?

Here’s the real kicker in all of this. I do not know the best way to live in the now. I have been thoroughly indoctrinated into the societal obsession with time, and my work to withdraw from that perception is a challenge. But because I desire to consciously create the reality I most want to have, I am doing anything and everything I can think of to more regularly live in the here and now.

What tools do I have to employ for this process? That is a question I will examine further next week.

Do you live in the past, future or present most frequently?

This is the two-hundred seventy-ninth entry in my series. These weekly posts are ideas and my personal experiences in walking along the path of life. I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world along the way.

Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-blog and share.

The first year of Pathwalking, including some expanded ideas, is available here.

Share this:

When you have set up habitual ways of doing things, it is tremendously difficult to change them.

We don’t recognize all of our habitual behaviors as habits. When we think of habits, we think of things like smoking and drinking and chewing off our fingernails and so on. But any routine we do on a regular basis is a habit.

Oftentimes, when we get stuck on the path we are trying to traverse, or having issues with conscious reality creation, we need to identify and change bad habits.

The thing is, “bad” is a relatively subjective term. Many of the habits we deem as bad are extremes. Many of our other habits that are bad are simply unhealthy, unproductive, often poor behaviors that sabotage our progress or hold us hostage in some way.

I have been working on changing my morning routine. I want to get to the gym. I have started to get up earlier, and set the coffee maker on a timer every night. I have been working to shift away from my old routine of get up, make coffee, go online, putter about for an hour or two, then go to work.

Breaking from routine is challenging. There is often comfort in routine. Like an old bathrobe you luxuriate in, routine is soft and familiar and safe.

Many of the self-help themed books I have read and listened to describe how, to make changes and get where you want to be in life, you have to get uncomfortable. You need to do things that are not the norm, that break your routines and patterns and create new behaviors and habits.

I need to step berating myself and using poor self-talk when I do not reach the goal I am setting. I need to let every day stand all on its own, because then the next day has the potential it needs to be different, and to represent the changes I need and want to make.

Pathwalking is about choice. I have chosen a path I want to take. However, more than just choice, I also have to look at what I do from day to day along the way. If, as I frequently have written, the journey is as important, if not more important, than the destination…then every action while on the journey should not be ignored, and needs to be considered.

Pathwalking is not easy. There are days I face my choices and become flustered, uncertain, even displeased and distressed. Why am I doing this? How come this is taking so long? Why doesn’t this seem to be working? Will I ever run out of questions?

Life is all about learning. I am learning new things every single day. There is always something new to learn, something more to understand and to discover. Quite probably the best way to learn is to ask questions. Questions bring us awareness, and awareness is key to conscious reality creation.

As I write this, I am perfectly aware that I am feeling frustrated. I am not where I want to be, and I cannot see how or when this situation might change. I am feeling blah, feeling defeated, tired, distressed and unhappy. I am questioning many things about my existence, and I am not seeing answers.

Yet I know that I need to persist, to break through this moment. I can choose to let this negative feeling linger, or I can seek out a means by which to overcome it. I can wallow in self-pity and annoyance over not making the change to my habits I want, or I can move past it, and I can shift my focus to positive things.

I am affected by weather. Grey skies tend to bring down my mood. I am affected by politics. I cannot even begin to describe the largely negative emotions I feel over the current situation in the USA and elsewhere. I am, like everyone else, affected by the world around me.

Like working to change my habits, I get to choose whether to allow these outside influences to dominate my thoughts and feelings…or to acknowledge them, find a healthy means to release them, and then move on. Maybe I need to type out a long and angry rant about things…maybe I need to find a punching bag to beat. Maybe I need to scream and shout and push out the negative feelings.

If I am not succeeding at making change, I need to acknowledge that, then work on letting it go. Once I release it, and only after I release it, I can work to build something better.

Breaking the routine is hard. Life is generally made up of many different routines, so imbedded in our days that we seldom even see them. Getting free of them is tricky, because first you have to see them for the ineffectual habits that they are. Then, you can’t hold onto the ways they make you feel bad if you want to change them. You have to find a way to release, to let them go…and then you can move forward.

We all have good days and bad days. The challenge is allowing negativity to linger and continue to bring us down…or to find release, and seek out better. Breaking the routine is a challenge, but I believe the end result, even if I cannot currently see it, will be totally worthwhile.

What routines do you need and want to break in your life?

This is the two-hundred seventy-eighth entry in my series. These weekly posts are ideas and my personal experiences in walking along the path of life. I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world along the way.

Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-blog and share.

The first year of Pathwalking, including some expanded ideas, is available here.

Share this:

Everybody experiences points where you realize that you have to choose. Give up the path you are on, change tactics for your approach to it, start a new approach to the path from the beginning, or keep pushing as you are.

This can be a loaded issue, because there are pros and cons to all four options. Only you can decide which is going to be best in the given situation.

I am not a fan of giving up. I often feel that giving up is telling the Universe, ok, fine, you win. I am obviously barking up the wrong tree here, so I quit! Giving up is not surrendering to the Universe to let things happen, giving up is admitting and accepting defeat. You came, you saw, you tried, and you are done.

That’s not to say that, sometimes, it is necessary to give up. Maybe you realize that this path you have chosen is NOT the right one for you. Maybe you have a new view or opinion, and you just cannot see this to its conclusion. Maybe this path is simply wrong for you. Giving up is loaded down with negative connotations, but sometimes this is the best response. Sometimes you just have to admit, yes, I chose poorly or I have had enough of this or the like. The key to avoiding the negativity of giving up is making a new effort immediately after.

Rather than give up, there are other options. Changing tactics is looking at the path you are on, how you are traversing it, and recognizing that, perhaps, this is not working. Is it the path itself, or the way in which you are traveling it? This is where changing tactics comes into play.

It is easy to forget the importance of the journey itself. We live in a society that is all-but obsessed with achieving goals. Yet frequently during the course of the journey itself, we are likely to make all kinds of new and unexpected discoveries. This can be of tremendous value to our given paths.

Very few paths are straights and obstacle-free. Most twist, turn, double back, have bumps and detours and boulders along the way. Along the course of the path itself there are always new discoveries to be made. When, in the process of travelling a given path, we see that it is too strewn with obstacles, we might need to change the tactic for walking this path.

How do you change tactics mid-path? The approach changes. You may have been going at it from one angle, but now you see you need to try another angle. You may have been working on a frontal assault, now you realize you need to approach from the flank. You may have been using a boat to sail the steam, now you need an ATV to cross the rocky shoreline the stream ended at. Same path, new tactic for approaching it gets employed.

Sometimes you have come a long way down your path, and you reach a point where you realize you need to either quit or change your tactics. But there are times when simply changing tactics is likely to produce the same result, and you are still completely certain of this path you have chosen, so quitting is not an option.

Maybe you need to start over.

There is a difference between starting over, and choosing a wholly new path. Starting over is working with the same end goal in mind, but rather than remain on the path you chose in the beginning, you start over. You reach this point when you know with certainty that this is the path you desire, but you see that you need to begin it all over.

One way to look at this is like looking at dealing with getting lost. Sometimes when you get lost, and you are still attempting to go somewhere you want to go, you go back to the beginning and start again. Maybe you choose a different tool to help you get from where you are beginning to the end goal than you chose before. Maybe you walk instead of drive, fly instead of swim or similar. Same path you have been traversing, but now you start all over, and change how you trek upon it.

And then, from time to time, you decide that your best course of action is to just keep pushing on. You may consider giving up, you might think about changing your tactics, you might consider if you need to start over…but determine you are going where you need to, how you want to, and you should keep pushing on.

This will often keep us from quitting when it gets hard or deciding to mess up what we’ve already accomplished by beginning anew or changing our tactics. The pitfall of this, of course, is continuing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result.

All of these choices are perfectly valid. The key to making them, and any decision in regards to Pathwalking, is clarity. It begins with thought, which gets transmitted to feeling, and from there actions are taken. Thought is the first step on the path, feeling is the next, action the next, repeat as necessary.

Give up, change tactics, start over, or keep pushing on? You alone know what will work for you, and so long as you keep your mind as clear of negativity as you can, and you stay focused, you cannot choose wrong. And somehow, even if you do, you can make new choices and seek and travel new paths.

What will you do when you reach that point of choice on one of your paths?

This is the two-hundred seventy-seventh entry in my series. These weekly posts are ideas and my personal experiences in walking along the path of life. I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world along the way.

Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-blog and share.

The first year of Pathwalking, including some expanded ideas, is available here.

Share this:

It doesn’t seem to matter what I write. It can be words for business, it could be web content, it could be this blog, or it could be my next great work of fantasy. Whatever it is, writing grounds me, centers me, makes me feel good and opens the channels of creative energy.

Not everyone is a writer. But everyone has a thing, or even more than one thing, that produces this sort of feeling. We all have actions available to us that will help us to feel good when we are feeling down or otherwise negative; we all have actions that provide us comfort.

Unfortunately, we frequently are made to feel that we have to deny ourselves these things. Certainly some may not be appropriate at certain given times; but that does not lessen their importance to us.

When did we decide that living in joy was not important?

Seriously, how many people are almost constantly doing things that make them happy? We believe that happiness comes in small doses. While this might be true, it doesn’t mean that the small doses cannot be frequent and regular.

Except that we have accepted that small doses of happiness are just that…small. Short times, bits and pieces here and there. But overall, we have to be “responsible adults” or “contributing members of the society” or “grown-ups” or any other trite statements to the effect that happy is less important than acceptable to the norm.

Why is it that we accept it as duty or obligation to spend so much of our time doing things that don’t make us happy? No, I know I am not writing for everyone here – lots of people get to do their dream jobs, or live the life they most desire…but for every one of those people I suspect there are at least three people who don’t. Based on an utterly unscientific survey and reading of my friends and their jobs, I would even submit my 1 to 3 ratio is pretty conservative.

To some degree, this is simply the nature of our society. When you have to work to live, in-as-much as it’s accepted that you need to work to earn money to have food, shelter, clothing and transportation, let alone anything above and beyond that, it’s often easier to work a job that might not make you happy, but pays enough to cover your expenses.

To some degree society says that work shouldn’t be fun. How many TV shows and movies have come out where work is the enemy, the killer of joy and happiness and fun? How many times when we were growing up were we told we could play only after our chores and homework were done? Is it any wonder we don’t equate working with being happy?

One of the main reasons for Pathwalking is to find and make my own destiny. I want to make my way in this world, and live life…not let life live ME. Because consciousness creates reality, I need to shift my thoughts more consciously towards what I actually want, rather than allowing myself to just accept what is.

Present reality, I have mentioned before, is the result of past thoughts, feelings and actions. That can be a hard truth to believe, but if you are not seeing your present as what you wish it to be, you need to create a better one.

Hooky-Spooky Mumbo-Jumbo? No, this is conscious reality creation in action. If I get all hung up on things as they are, lamenting them, focusing on them, being displeased or otherwise unhappy with them, then I am subconsciously creating MORE OF THEM. Why? Because I am not working on conscious creation.

That’s how this works. If you don’t do it consciously, you do it in your subconscious, and you get what you get and life lives you. Think of what you want, feel what it feels like to have it, and take actions that are inspired and intentional to help it along. That, or keep allowing your subconscious to drive the bus, and hope you get lucky or fate intervenes or you stumble upon it. I know what I would rather do.

I want to be happy more than I am sad, depressed, or unhappy…don’t you? How come we are so quick to accept that we only get to be happy on occasions few and far between, when it’s clear all of us would want much more than that?

Pathwalking is ultimately about being happy. I used to say that content was good enough, but frankly content IS happy. If I am content then I am happy. Happy is not this big, unattainable thing that eludes us like a needle in a haystack…happy is what I believe, ultimately, each and every one of us desires from anything and everything we do.

Writing makes me feel good. When I get to write I feel grounded, I feel centered, and I feel good and productive. Knowing this, I want the path I walk to involve more writing, and with that abundance on every level, be it financial, physical, spiritual or otherwise.

What things make you happiest? How often do you make them a part of your everyday life?

This is the two-hundred seventy-sixth entry in my series. These weekly posts are ideas and my personal experiences in walking along the path of life. I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world along the way.

Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-blog and share.

The first year of Pathwalking, including some expanded ideas, is available here.

Share this:

What does that mean? When I am thinking about something, I frequently see not only the angle I wish to take, but alternative angles, results both good and bad, and all kinds of possibilities. Because of this, I frequently find it difficult to manifest precisely what I wish to.

I woke up the other morning feeling anxious. I realized what it was that was causing me to feel anxious, but even knowing that, I found it very hard to let it go and move past it. It was right there, making my heart pound, causing me to breathe too shallowly, feeling all uncomfortable, and I couldn’t shake it.

I still maintain that we are able to control our feelings…but this takes a lot of practice. This can be a pretty daunting task. I know that what I am feeling is not what I want to be feeling, I am aware of what I am feeling and where it is coming from, so now I should be able to change it.

Of course it is seldom that simple. This is even more challenging when, for the most part, you have previously just let your emotional states be. Getting them under your direct control takes a whole bunch of conscious effort, and that can be complicated, too.

It is amazingly easy to just be drawn through patterns. In particular when you have a relatively established daily routine. Get up, go to work, work at work, go home, eat dinner, watch TV, read, go to bed, repeat tomorrow – or whatever your typical day looks like. While you are partaking of your routine your subconscious often has control, and that can lead you precisely where you don’t want to be.

So what? If, while you are at work, you pause to check into social media, and you start to read about the crazy of the world…or you are chatting with friends or coworkers and start talking about some negative issue…or you really would rather be anywhere other than at your place of work, your subconscious is likely taking you downwards, into a negative space, and that will effect the reality you are creating.

All of the books on The Secret or The Law of Attraction or any other iteration of conscious reality creation say the EXACT SAME THING: Like attracts like. However, your current reality, as you are experiencing it, is actually a reflection of your past thoughts, feelings and actions. Get stuck in the present reality, and surprise surprise surprise, you will find yourself with MORE of the same.

Controlling your thoughts and feelings ALL THE TIME is pretty much impossible. This is why the “squirrels in your brain” chase themselves around as they do. Past that has created present often feels to us like present, and so we create the same for future, even though we want different, but if we try ‘x’ maybe this will work, but maybe not, because we tried ‘x’ so now maybe we try ‘y’ and…

Round and round you go. SO – how do you break the cycle? How do you stop the squirrels running around in your brain?

I wish I knew. I am working on this very question right now.

Despite knowing that consciousness creates reality, and that my current reality is just the product of my past thoughts, feelings and actions; despite knowing that I can and have created consciously my reality before, I still get distracted by the squirrels chasing one another around my brain. How do I deal with them?

First and foremost, this is important to state: “DO OR DO NOT, THERE IS NO TRY!” Yoda had it right, if you try to do the thing, in all probability you are half-assing it. That, at least, is my tendency. Rather than trying to do a thing, I need to just DO the thing in question.

What’s the difference between trying and doing? Trying leaves room for interpretation, for excuses, for procrastination, and ultimately for failure. Doing, on the other hand, is bolder, more pointed, more direct, and while doing might lead to failing, you took an action.

How do I deal with the squirrels in my brain? First – I need to BE AWARE of them. I can’t ignore them, I have to acknowledge them, and see what it is they want. How do I deal with them if I am disregarding or ignoring them, and I don’t understand what it is they are being so squirrelly about in the first place?

Second – Address them. Being aware is the first step, addressing them is the next. Why is my brain being all squirrelly needs to be followed by action to settle matters down. What is it they are wanting?

Third – Let them go. I became aware of them, I addressed them, now I need to let them go. All too often the reason the brain is being squirrelly is because we are mulling something over and over and over again. We are chewing on regret or the potential results of a decision or choices we made or didn’t make or what-have-you. If I let go of them, they can go away and stop chasing each other around in my head.

Fourth – Repeat as necessary. If you are like me, this recurs from time to time. Knowing that, we can work on improving quieting the damned rodents rather than letting them drive us crazy as often as they do.

A little Pathwalking in Process for you this week. Now that I have worked through this – all that remains is to DO IT as necessary.

How do you deal with the squirrels in your brain?

This is the two-hundred seventy-fifth entry in my series. These weekly posts are ideas and my personal experiences in walking along the path of life. I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world along the way.

Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-blog and share.

The first year of Pathwalking, including some expanded ideas, is available here.